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Productivity

Tips For Buying A New Laptop Computer

Purchasing a brand new laptop computer can be something of a challenge given the amount of options and choices which are available.

For many people the process of buying a new laptop computer can actually turn out to be quite overwhelming. Fortunately there are some simple tips which can be followed to make the purchasing process much simpler.

One tip is to try and narrow down some of the key choices and options.

Identify and focus on the requirements and features which are the most important and this will help you to narrow it down to the best laptop computer which you can buy for your budget and needs.

The first thing to determine is what you will use the laptop computer for, as this helps to clear up your needs in terms of battery life, performance, size, storage capacity and weight.

If you need to use the laptop outside of your home or office, then this makes the weight of the system and the size of the screen important.

A non-glare screen might come in handy if you will use it outdoors or in bright rooms.

If there are a large number of files you wish to store, then a bigger hard disk drive will also be needed.  Asking these questions can make the whole process much less intimidating.

Time To Wake Up? Here’s How To Get Off To An Early Start

For many of us, the “early to rise” part of Benjamin Franklin’s famous advice is the hardest. But if you want to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, you can’t lie under the covers all day.

To get an early start on a productive day, try these strategies:

• Give yourself a good reason to get up. Choose something important to do first thing in the morning—something you enjoy and feel passionate about. Think about this as you go to sleep, and you’ll be more eager to get up the next morning.

• Practice good sleep habits. Avoid caffeine or alcohol, both of which can disturb your sleep patterns. Getting enough sleep is key to waking up on time.

• Don’t just hit snooze. Set multiple alarm clocks, and place them across the room so you have to get up and get moving in order to shut them off.

• Have a buddy system. Schedule an early-morning activity with a friend (like a walk), or just a phone call to ensure you get up on time.

• Develop a consistent habit. Get up at the same time every day, regardless of what you’re doing. Your body will adjust to a fixed routine.

• Drink some water. A glass of cold water first thing in the morning will revive and refresh you.

• Keep track of your success. Motivate yourself with a diary of what time you get up every morning. After a while, your desire to sleep will be outweighed by the knowledge that you’ll have to log a later waking time.

Making Use Of Google To Help Your Day Run Smoother

The Internet is a very big place. Anyone who wishes to use the Internet in an effective manner needs to be familiar with search engines.

Google has become the primary choice for millions of users, although there are some others.

One of the main reasons for Google’s popularity and general reputation as being the best of the search engines is that they keep on coming up with new methods for surfing the Internet.

For instance, if you wish to look up a news story or current event, then http://news.google.com allows you to instantly have access to news stories that are literally just a couple of minutes old.

Anyone who is looking for a picture of just about anything is almost sure to find it at http://images.google.com, which is quite possibly the largest image search engine in the whole world.

If you’re looking for map or address information, check out http://maps.google.com – hundreds of thousands of addresses now have street view, showing you the actual view from a car in front of the building you’re looking for.

Google also has specific search engines for books, videos and even stock market developments.

How To Fall In Love With Your Computer All Over Again!

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Have you ever shouted at your computer because it froze up, crashed, and caused you to lose work? Have you ever whacked it with your hand, kicked it, or smashed the keyboard out of frustration?

If so, you’re not alone. Problems with a computer, cell phone or other gadget can be so frustrating that it has been called “computer rage” by some psychologists, and it’s on the rise.

According to a recent poll, three quarters of computer users have admitted to shouting, swearing, or committing acts of violence towards their computer (for the record, I think the number is much higher!).

While some simply curse the darn thing, others have admitted to hitting it until their hand bled or throwing it across the room.

One computer user was quoted as saying, “You feel so helpless. All you can do is sit there and watch the stupid thing freeze up and there isn’t a darn thing you can do about it. The error may only cause a few minutes delay, but it feels like a lifetime when you’re in a hurry to get things done.”

Deadlines are missed, work is lost, customers angered – all because of computer trouble. And the vast majority claim that problems like this happen on a consistent basis.

Apparently, technical problems are only the start of most peoples’ anxiety.

Many report that they are further angered by the time and process it takes to get the problem fixed, and some employees claim computer problems are their number one source of work anxiety and stress.

IT related problems further compound employee dissatisfaction since it often forces them to work late or take work home. If you are an employer, take note: your unstable computer network could be elevating your employees’ anxiety and job dissatisfaction levels, not to mention interfering with their productivity.

Our Experts Total Support Plans have helped dozens of clients end “computer rage” at their company. There are two ways we accomplish this: First, our 24/7 monitoring helps us detect and prevent problems before they show up. Your system runs faster, has fewer problems, and users aren’t constantly having to deal with system errors.

We also keep your security patches up-to-date, we prevent spyware, viruses, and hackers from invading your network, and we make sure you have a reliable backup of your system and data.

This basic maintenance is critical to the speed and performance of your computer network.Second, getting help is MUCH easier and faster with Experts Total Support.

Our secure software allows us to remotely log in to your network to diagnose and resolve most problems on the spot. No more waiting around for a technician to show up!

Sign Up Today And Get Your First Month FREE 

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, we want to “show you the love” by giving you the first month of service FREE. 

You’ll discover how Experts Total Support will make you fall back in love with your computer network. Give the office a call at (734) 457-5001.

Does VOIP Phone Service Make Sense For Your Business?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.
When we moved our office last month, part of the process included reviewing things like our telephone and Internet services.

Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service is basically technology that allows you to make and receive calls over data networks.

Instead of traditional phone services which channel analog signals such as the sound of your voice over copper wires, VoIP converts these sounds to digital form first—so that they can be sliced, diced, packaged, and routed over a digital network.

Because VoIP technology uses the same ideas behind data networking, and allows the use of the same networks used by computers, voice traffic can also be routed through the Internet as well.

Suddenly you can now dramatically reduce the cost of voice communications, as well as achieve creative combinations of both services to create new applications for use.

VOIP (voice over IP) services have really evolved over the past few years. In the past, I’ve been hesitant to use it because the service could be flaky – and since 90%+ of our business comes in by telephone, I wasn’t comfortable with something that wasn’t reliable.

Fortunately for small business owners, that’s changed. The service is now as reliable as service from the phone  company. And with the ubiquity of high speed Internet service, call quality has improved to the point of being indistinguishable from the old telephone network.

Our switch to VOIP provided two significant improvements over the service we used before.

First, we increased our telephone line capacity and coverage. We’ve added telephone numbers for our client’s in Toledo, Dundee, and the downriver area to be able to call us locally.

Second – and perhaps more importantly – we’ve cut our  telephone costs in half.

Cost and coverage were my primary concerns when looking at a move to VoIP services. Here are a few reasons you may want  to consider switching to VoIP for your office:

You can make and receive calls from multiple devices – for instance, on a dedicated phone, your PC via a software-based phone, or even a mobile phone with VoIP capabilities.

It’s easier to add extensions to your phone. You can provide a local number or extension for all your staff without  additional costs or cabling.

VoIP allows your employees to be more productive and  efficient by giving them the ability to receive and make  calls anywhere with a data connection.

You can use VoIP as a tool for real-time collaboration along with video conferencing, screen sharing, and digital white boarding.

You can potentially unify your communication channels,  streamlining communications and information management—for instance, marrying email with fax and voice in one inbox.

You can employ presence technologies that come standard with VoIP phones and VoIP communication systems. This technology can tell colleagues about your presence or give you info on the status and whereabouts of your staff.

Saying Goodbye To An Old Friend… Would A New Workstation Boost Your Productivity?

Many people find it hard to let go of that old workstation that seems to be “working just fine.” But, ask yourself: Is it really?

Most people recognize that, as their machine ages, it seems to get slower and slower.

A fresh install of Windows generally makes the computer speed back up to it’s “like new” speed.

But as we rely more and more on our computers, laptops, phones, and tablets to be productive in our work, does working at that original speed still make sense?

If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it?
Why is it a bad idea to have the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” mentality when it comes to your computer?

For starters, you’re wasting your money doing so. If a computer is past its normal lifecycle then it really doesn’t make any sense spending the money to continuously bring it back to a like new state as far as the software goes because the hardware is still very outdated.

In general a desktop computer’s useful life span is roughly three to five years providing you purchased a mid-range computer and not the bottom of the line model.

For laptops you get slightly less useful life span out of them due to the fact that a mid-range laptop is generally not as good of hardware as a mid-range desktop.

The other reason a laptop doesn’t tend to last as long is the fact that it is constantly being moved around.

This constant movement, shaking, vibrating, dropping, etc. causes a lot more stress on the hardware in comparison to a desktop.

Due to the different factors involved in a laptop’s life cycle, a laptop’s useful life is roughly two to three years – perhaps slightly longer if it is well cared for.

Software updates may require PC upgrades
Another reason to think about workstation replacement has to do with the software you run on your machine.

Many different software companies offer updates to their software.

Some updates offer fixes to problems or security issues, but many updates also offer new features or updates to old features.

These updates sometimes include a better graphical interface that makes a program easier to use.

Generally, these types of updates have higher computing and speed requirements. Many industry specific software companies put out these types of updates, and they’re great!

Who wouldn’t want a more attractive user interface that functions better and offers more options?

The problem: Updating/upgrading software requires more system resources almost one hundred percent of the time.

If you’re the kind of person that likes to hold on to your workstation forever and never update it, but wants those nice software updates, you might see performance problems.

While your software is updating it needs more RAM, more CPU power, and in some cases, more graphical capacity to run to the new software properly. A lot of times, users don’t realize that with new features come new requirements.

In short, if your computer is over five years old, consider replacing it, particularly if it’s a laptop. A faster workstation will help you with updated software, and keep up with your busy workload.

Feature article written by: Tech Experts

Are You Suffering From Email Overload?

A cluttered and unorganized mailbox can make it difficult to find the email you need. This messy situation can be remedied.

Microsoft Outlook offers great tools that help you sort your email and organize your messages in meaningful, easy-to-control ways. Outlook can even help increase your efficiency and productivity.

Sort messages quickly
Outlook 2010 has a great new feature for organizing messages by date and arranging them by Conversation.

Using this feature, messages that share the same subject appear as Conversations that can be viewed and expanded or collapsed by clicking the icon to the left of the Subject line.

The messages within each Conversation are sorted with the newest message on top. When a new message is received, the entire Conversation moves to the top of your message list.

To turn on Conversations, on the View tab, in the Conversations group, select the Show as Conversations check box.

In all versions of Outlook, you can find messages in mailbox folders more quickly by changing how they’re sorted in your email folders. For example, you can arrange your email by date, sender, or file size.

Group similar messages in folders
By creating new mail folders, you can group messages related to each other. For example, you can group messages by topic, project, contact, or other categories that make sense to you. You can even create a folder for all the messages from an important client or vendor.

In Outlook 2010, to create a new folder, on the Folder tab, in the New group, click New Folder. In Outlook 2007 or 2003, on the File menu, point to New and then Folder.

Create search folders to find messages fast
Search Folders are a quick way to look at predefined collections of email messages.

They don’t actually store any messages themselves. They’re virtual folders that offer a view of all the messages in your Inbox that match your search criteria.

You can use Search Folders to help you find all the information related to a particular project, an important client, or an upcoming conference.

To create a Search Folder in Outlook 2010, in Mail, on the Folder tab, in the New group, click New Search Folder. To create a Search Folder in Outlook 2007 or 2003, in Mail, on the File menu, point to New, and then click Search Folder.

Route mail efficiently using mailbox rules
By creating rules for Outlook, you can automatically perform actions on both incoming and outgoing messages based on criteria you establish.

For instance, you can automatically forward all messages sent by your VIP clients to everyone on your sales team, assign the category Sales to all messages you send that have the word “sales” in the Subject line, and more.

Routing mail efficiently not only organizes your mail for you – but also frees up your time from performing routing tasks.

Reduce unwanted email with junk filters
Keep distracting and unwanted messages out of your Inbox by using Outlook Junk Email filters.

These filters send junk email to a separate mail folder in your Inbox.

You can review these messages to ensure that no legitimate messages are there, and if they are, you can adjust the filter to avoid flagging such messages in the future.

It’s a good practice to monitor the Junk Email folder to make sure you don’t miss any important messages.

Saving Money On IT: 8 Tips To Speed Up Your Systems, Extend Their Life, And Be More Productive

Sluggish computers got you down? You’re not alone – many people make the mistake of letting their slow computers cost them time, money and headaches. Sometimes, folks will even resort to buying a new machine rather than resolving the slow computer issues.

Here are eight tips that will help you speed up your systems, extend their life, and let you be more productive – all without investing a lot of money or time.

Physical Cleanliness
It is a best practice to clean your system at least once every quarter. You can use a vacuum to clean the outside of the computer case, and keyboard for starters. You should NOT vacuum the inside of the case – this creates static electricity which could damage the system.

Obviously you never want to get the inside damp, wet, or use liquid cleaners on it. The best way to keep the inside clean is to get a can of compressed air. Simply blow out the system fans and any accumulated dust and debris. Fans can become clogged after time, and prevent proper cooling, which greatly affects the performance.

Software Management
Over time, installed software can clutter up the system, and often, installed applications are forgotten about over time. Regularly checking your program list and removing anything that hasn’t been used in a while is another best practice.

Simply go to Start->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs. From there you can check through the list of installed programs, and decide which ones should go, and which ones can stay.

Start Up (Boot Up)
You may have noticed that the system used to start up a lot faster than it does now. In most cases, this can be easily resolved by clearing out the programs that are set to run at startup.

Most users don’t even realize there are several programs starting up when they turn their systems on. Ideally, you would want as few applications as possible to start up, and then open programs as they are needed.

Simply go to Start->Run>type in “msconfig” (without the parenthesis). This will bring up the Microsoft Configuration Utility. From there, you can choose the startup tab, and get a list of programs that are set to start when Windows is starting up. You can simply check/uncheck which programs you want.

Clean Up The Cache
Every time you visit a web site, the content and pictures are downloaded to a temporary holding area on your hard drive, called the cache. The Internet cache is useful because it helps websites load faster the next time you visit them. Over time, the cache can take up disk space, and cause the system to run slower.

I’d suggest keeping your cache cleared, simply by running a disk cleanup. This will allow you to remove the following: temporary Internet files, downloaded program files, offline webpage’s, files in the recycle bin, temporary files, and “compress old files.”

Disk Defragmentation
Sometimes when you install new programs, or create new data files, the files end up being chopped up into chunks and stored in multiple locations on the hard disk. This is called fragmentation.

Disk defragmentation basically takes all of your files, and arranges them in a logical order. It’s like having all of your files in a filing cabinet scattered, and then re-arranging so everything is in order, and similar files are grouped with each other.

So next time you go to call on a file, data source, program, etc.the specified data is all grouped together making it faster to access and load. This should be done at least once a month.

Antivirus Scanning
We all know the problems that viruses and spyware can cause! Spyware and virus activity is one of the biggest culprits of slow moving computers, and having an active antivirus program doing daily system scans is always a best practice. This will ensure your system’s performance is not at jeopardy due to malicious related software.

Keeping your Windows operating system up to date will ensure you have the latest service packs, security patches, third party device drivers, and many other critical updates to your Microsoft Windows operating system.

Keep Windows Up to Date
Microsoft allows the automatic update and installation of updates if configured properly. Simply right click the My Computer icon, and choose automatic updates tab. From there you can decide what day you want updates to run, and whether or not you want them to be downloaded and/or installed.

Clean The Registry
The registry is a database which stores most of the settings and options for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains information and settings for hardware, operating system software, and per-user settings.

CAUTION: In most cases, only advanced users should edit the registry!!

Over time, programs can cause clogging of the registry, which will affect system performance; a great tool to run on this would be CCleaner; which is a free download available at http://www.ccleaner.com/.

So if you want to speed your systems, extend the life of your computer, and learn to be more productive with your pc, without spending a bunch of money or time doing so, follow some of these best practices, and you will be well on your way to a more efficient, and pleasant time on the computer.

How To Prevent Downtime On Your Network

With the national average of computer related repairs at $95 – $125 per hour, a troubled economy, and so many security vulnerabilities lurking around the Internet, getting downtime on networks to a minimum is becoming the number one goal of Computer/IT support companies like Tech Experts.

Preventing downtime on your network starts at square one: Who provides your IT support, and what do they have to offer to ensure you’re getting a high quality support at a reasonable cost to your business. With the right kind of IT support, your employees can focus on their own work and maintain a high level of productivity, without the hassle of downtime.

Using a service company to manage your network can be done in a variety of different ways, but for the most part, there are two main forms of service:  Break-fix, better known as pay as you go, or managed service protection (MSP).  So the big question is: Which is right for your company?

So what are the key differences between the two?  We’ll start with the break fix approach.

This is the standard service model – when something breaks, you call your service provider and they repair it. For some companies, particularly smaller networks, this works very well. The costs are relatively low, but every time you have an issue, there’s a cost involved. Oftentimes, you’re reluctant to call for support for what seems to be a “minor” issue. Instead, you save them up to combine service visits. The problem comes in when what seems to be a minor issue is really something more significant.

On the other hand, we have the managed service model.  This type of service delivery plan  is designed to provide a high level of IT support to a company at a fixed IT budget, so there are no surprises.

Typically, a fixed monthly price negotiated by the IT support company and the client.  There are usually different levels of support, starting from basic support of servers, workstations, and network devices, all the way on up to fully managed networks.

The highest level of support typically gives the business “whatever it takes” support, meaning that whenever you have an issue, it’s taken care of, and again the price stays as agreed.  It’s always in the best interest of the managed service provider to maintain maximum uptime for your network.

Managed service provides full network maintenance, and proactive management, reducing the number of future issues, which again keeps your network uptime maximized, which ensures productivity is at the highest level possible.

There’s usually no minimum or maximum number of users, which provides scalability for your network, giving it room to grow in the future. No matter how large your company might grow, your managed service provider will provide peace of mind in keeping your network up and running at full proficiency.

Lastly, there is typically a hardware replacement plan in place.  Because the MSP is monitoring your network at all times, they actually create a “map” of the entire infrastructure, which gives the company the age and health of the equipment on the network. In most cases, you’ll have insight into which hardware needs to be replaced ahead of time, which lets you budget for equipment upgrades.

Overall, I think a managed service is the way to go. It provides the business with peace of mind that the entire network is being monitored, recurring issues are prevented, costs and hidden fees are eliminated, and network growth is scalable and affordable.

Tired Of Cell 411 Charges? Check Out Google’s 411

If your cell phone bill keeps creeping higher and higher because of calls to directory assistance, we’ve got a time and money saver for you. Google’s at it again. They are known for easy and free, and GOOG-411 is no exception.

This time they’re eliminating those expensive cell phone calls to 411 directory assistance. Their free service helps you find what you need fast and easily, and they’ll even connect your call or send you a map to the location.

It’s completely voice-activated. Program 1-800-GOOG-411 into your cell phone favorites and you’re ready to go. When you’ve found the business you want, say “text it” to send full details to your phone, or say “map it” to get a mobile map (assuming your phone has mapping capabilities).

For full details, visit the 1-800-GOOG-411 Home Page at http://www.google.com/goog411. Or just program in that number and give it a try.